


alone on the summit

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Link Joker, M/M, Reference to one-sided kairen, suicidal ideations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 16:05:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16537811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Kai thought that accepting the power of the Void would make him feel whole. Instead, he felt emptier than he ever had before.





	alone on the summit

**Author's Note:**

> this was largely a self-reflective piece, and a lot of me projecting some of myself onto Kai. as such, this character introspection gets very personal at times, so I feel it's important to redirect you to the warnings so nothing catches you off-guard.

Watching the fight between Aichi and Ren overwhelmed Kai.

Envy was his predominant feeling as the strength of their image formed around him, envy that he wasn't a part of it, that only they could feel the burning passion of the other as they clashed. The fight reached its climax, Ren emerged victorious-- but Aichi, despite losing, held onto an aura of strength that took Kai's breath away.

That desire to feel what they had felt in the fight collapsed as he sat in the bleachers, the bloc of Fukuhara High students roaring their approval at Ren's victory, but the sound was a soft buzz in Kai's ears as his adrenaline vanished, leaving him exhausted and confused.

Watching Aichi grow as a fighter had been one of Kai's greatest pleasures and sources of pride. He had taught Aichi, who in turn strove to catch up to Kai's level.

But he caught up too quickly.

There was only so much of a mountain he could climb; eventually, he would reach the peak and the only place left to go was down. When he ran out of mountains to summit, Aichi had soared above the earth, he and Ren, leaving Kai yearning for the same power to lift himself from the ground and join them.

It was lonely on that mountain.

Aichi's teammates gathered around him, offering their condolences on his loss but likely assuring him that he had fought his best. Aichi probably believed it, too. But Kai knew better. Every time Aichi reached the peak, he found another one to best.

Miwa tugged on his arm, but Kai, focused on Aichi chatting animatedly with his team, didn't hear. Despite his loss, Aichi was already looking toward the next fight, and how he could improve.

Aichi turned his head toward the bleachers, caught Kai's eye, and smiled.

Kai's entire body burned. He tore his eyes away and got up to leave.

* * *

 

From the day of his parents' deaths, Kai Toshiki struggled to discover himself.

He was different from his peers. But it was more than the fact that he was an orphan at age eleven. He had no interests that his classmates shared. He didn't connect with them. They seemed frightened of him. Perhaps he should have tried to communicate with them. But they had nothing in common, and they had families. Kai was envious of that.

For years he attributed his disconnect with being uprooted from his old school, and his old friends, and shuffled around from relative to relative, all of them reluctant caregivers who neither cared about nor gave him anything more than a bed to sleep in. They resented him. Children were expensive to care for. So he learned to take care of himself; he learned to cook and clean, to be seen and not heard. He learned to stop crying, because boys didn't cry.

He never learned to express his emotions. Something deep in his heart told him that if he just talked to someone, he wouldn't have the void in his heart left when Ren and Aichi surpassed him. But he never did, and now it was too late.

Anything to bring relief to this aching loneliness would do.

The sword in his hand was light, almost like holding nothing at all. He gazed down at himself, at the scared child who had never understood himself and didn't know how to, had never known what power he could possess. Even at the height of his power, could Aichi stand a chance against Kai if his own abilities were amplified by this powerful force, the strength of Link Joker?

_This isn't us._

He didn't know at what point in the past year he had realized who he was. Maybe it was during the national championships. Maybe it was during Asia Circuit. Being around Aichi was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. He was happy. He was warm. And over time, the urge to be close to Aichi, to spend more time with him, to _touch_ him overwhelmed him. These childish feelings for a friend who saved him from his loneliness and depression and gave him hope were feelings he shouldn't have. It was wrong, it was all wrong.

It terrified him.

_He'll never accept you like this._

Kai's hand tightened on the sword.

_You're not good enough for him._

The only way to move forward was to kill those feelings.

The sword moved easily through his body. His own eyes stared back at him, full of sorrow.

He closed his eyes and pushed it in deeper.

* * *

 

Fight after fight after fight failed to fill the void in his heart where he had cast out Sendou Aichi. He was strong now, too strong. No one stood a chance.

Reversed fighters surrounded him. Weak. All of them. From Paris to New York to Rio de Janeiro to Cairo to Melbourne...

No one could satisfy him.

There was nothing to do on those long flights but think, and all he could think about was Aichi.

* * *

 

Aichi's fight lacked any of his usual passion. On the verge of tears for the entirety of the fight, eyes cast downward and hands trembling with each card he set on the field, he stood at the bottom of the mountain again, wishing he could climb to meet Kai but not knowing how to start.

He wanted to feel Aichi's passion. He wanted to clash head-on, for his power to be matched until he emerged victorious, to be able to fly higher than even Aichi could reach--

_This isn't you._

The words stabbed at Kai, but nothing cut deeper than the sight of Aichi kneeling on the ground, struggling against the Reverse trying to consume him, desperately trying to understand why Kai Toshiki, his friend, would do something like this.

Kai turned away, feigning indifference. The void in his heart widened.

* * *

 

The first time he knew something was wrong with him was when he developed an unnatural affection for Suzugamori Ren.

That yearning to be around him that the other boys in class talked about feeling toward girls, but that Kai would never dare to voice having for another boy. That urge to touch Ren's soft-looking hair, to twirl it in his fingers the same way Ren did when he thought too hard.

It was harder and harder for Kai to be around Ren and not want to act on these feelings. He was sure Ren would let it happen, and sometimes Ren grabbed Kai by the hand and dragged him off and Kai's entire body would erupt.

Shameful.

Unlike Aichi, Ren poured his entire soul into the fight.

It should have been satisfying when Kai emerged victorious. He had bested his two greatest rivals. He was the greatest fighter in the world.

But he had never felt such overwhelming emptiness in his life.

* * *

 

For years, Kai had struggled to find meaning in his life. Vanguard had given him more than anything else; in it, he found a common bond with others. In it, he had found friends.

He threw those friends away, for a power that, once again, Sendou Aichi had overcome.

Kai should have felt anger. The one force he had yet to overcome, and Aichi had gotten there first. It deepened his inadequacies, that fear of losing, that fear of being left behind on the ground as Aichi soared ever higher, free.

He yearned for that same freedom.

Even as he challenged Aichi to one more fight, knowing that Aichi's body and spirit were spent from his earlier fight with Kai and the fight with Takuto, knowing that Aichi was on the verge of physical death from the strain on his body...

...he knew he was destined to lose.

That same inadequacy that defined his entire life defined his feelings toward Aichi. No one was as selfless or as compassionate, no one more loyal or gentle or attuned to the feelings of others or as brilliant in every way.

It was no wonder Kai had fallen so deeply in love with him.

Aichi didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve to be weighed down by Kai's ineptitude and selfishness. He didn't deserve the burden of knowing that everything that had happened was because Kai couldn't cope with his own self-hatred and fear of falling in love with another boy.

He put his soul into the fight, this time. Kai appreciated that.

He wanted his last fight to give him some peace.

The building was tall, and nothing would be able to fill that aching emptiness in his heart. As long as he was around, he would continue to hurt Aichi with his presence. Sooner or later, Aichi would come to realize that Kai didn't just see Aichi as a friend.

The thought of Aichi finding out about the part of Kai he had spent years trying to bury hurt too much, because he couldn't bear the thought of Aichi knowing, and he couldn't bear the thought of Aichi not knowing.

The building was tall and there was concrete below, and it would be quick.

It was the end of their relationship, he told Aichi, and he needed Aichi to know what he meant. It was more than their relationship as rivals, more than as friends, but the bond they shared that had once given Kai's life meaning. He wanted with all his soul for Aichi to understand, but prayed Aichi wouldn't, because this was one more burden to add to Aichi's overburdened heart, and Aichi didn't deserve that, either.

 _I idolize you_ , Aichi said, and what a mistake. There was nothing about Kai to idolize; he sold his soul for power where Aichi faced every obstacle life threw his way with earnest determination.

"This fight is my farewell to you."

The sorrow in Aichi's eyes deepened to a harrowing realization of what exactly Kai was planning for the end of this fight.

"Are you going to hurt me again?" His voice quaked and Kai inhaled sharply. _Again_ ; because he had already hurt Aichi so much, and Aichi still refused to let him go. "Is that why you're going to disappear?"

Yes, but Kai wouldn't have to be around to watch his greatest failure destroy Aichi's spirit.

He wished he could stop looking at Aichi, because the sadness in his face hurt Kai so much he wasn't sure he could finish the fight.

"I'm not here... to say goodbye to you, Kai." He slammed his hands on the platform in front of him. "I just want you to know that you're not alone!"

Here was proof that Aichi knew exactly what Kai was planning on doing.

"Imagine it! I..."

Hesitation.

"I'm with you, by your side."

How he longed to hear those words.

How they broke his heart.

That sad boy he had met once, so long ago, had matured into a confident young man, supportive and hardworking and--Kai dared to let himself think it--handsome; gone was the boy who stammered and apologized, who never believed he could accomplish anything.

And here he was, this beautiful boy, this pure soul, telling Kai that _his_ life had been incomplete without Kai, Kai's mentoring, Kai's drive, Kai's determination, Kai's spirit...

Maybe, just maybe, Aichi's love could absolve Kai of his sinful desires.

The fight ended with Aichi's victory, as Kai had believed it would, and the ring above them began shattering in larger and larger pieces. Before too long, the building might be unsafe, but for now, Aichi walked toward Kai as though they had all the time in the world.

Maybe now, they would.

Nothing Kai could think of to say seemed adequate. No apology was sufficient for what he'd put Aichi through, no confession appropriate.

 _You mean so much to me,_ Aichi had said. Kai felt the same. But Aichi didn't just mean _so much_ to him; he meant the world.

Kai had a lifetime of loneliness. He had no parents to teach him how to manage his feelings, or to understand how to communicate with others, or even to assure him that loving another boy wasn't something to be ashamed of. And though he had no proper threshold for what _love_ was, this must be it; being willing to give yourself up to protect someone else. To cherish that person's happiness. To yearn to see them grow.

And maybe he'd been alone for so long that he'd latched onto the first person that saw past his facade of indifference and helped him recognize his own insecurities, and maybe that too would be another weakness he would have to overcome.

But as Aichi looked up at him with such tenderness that Kai thought his heart might stop, he let himself cast that thought aside for the time.

He wanted to touch Aichi, to take him by the hand and stand there with him as the ring collapsed around them. And Aichi's hand was so close it would take only a small movement to grab it. But that thought paralyzed him. Aichi would let him hold his hand, not out of attraction but out of friendship, a concession made out of fear that rejecting Kai there would result in Kai going through with his promise to end his life.

One more thing that Aichi didn't deserve.

Aichi's hand touched his, and Kai's entire facade shattered.

He wasn't good enough for Aichi, not as a fighter and not as something more. That had been his fear all along; besting Aichi at Vanguard had served as a twisted proxy for him finally casting off those feelings he shouldn't have. That he was willing to take something that gave Aichi joy and turning it into something that caused him nothing but pain was proof that Kai didn't deserve him.

But _this!_ This feeling in the pit of his stomach, spreading through his chest and head and through his fingers and toes, all through his body, making him feel tingly and light, this sensation stemming from the feeling of Aichi's fingers tracing the back of Kai's knuckles and wrapping around his hand, and this feeling of Aichi stepping closer to him until their bodies touched and _this feeling_ of Aichi's arms around him and _this feeling_ of Aichi's head resting on his chest, all while Kai struggled to figure out what to do with his hands until he managed to place them on Aichi's shoulders...

It was this feeling that, for the first time since he lost his parents, Kai truly believed that maybe he was worthy of love after all.


End file.
